


winner takes all

by dragonbagel



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Bending (Avatar), Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Blue Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Drinking, Equalists (Avatar), Eventual Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), M/M, Minor Jet/Zuko (Avatar), POV Sokka (Avatar), Past Jet/Katara (Avatar), Past Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Pro-Bending, Republic City, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbagel/pseuds/dragonbagel
Summary: Sokka clenches his fists. No, he can’t do any fancy water magic. So what? With his genius strategies and play tactics, he pulls far more than just his own weight on the team....Right?or: sokka takes on republic city, ft. pro-bending, equalists, freedom fighters and one mysterious, scarred tea server
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Jet & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka & The Gaang (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 70





	1. pretty fly for a non-bending guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this au, roku stopped sozin before he could use the comet to wipe out the air nomads, but aang still panicked and got himself frozen. when he wakes up 200 years later, the world is almost at war, and the fire nation is slowly taking over.

The worst part about Republic City, Sokka thinks, is the noise.

It’s incessant and loud and just plain annoying, and Sokka frankly has no idea how he once thought the ruckus was even mildly appealing. Maybe it’s because he grew up in the South Pole, where the only sounds were the Arctic winds outside and the flickering of warmth in the hearth. He still remembers the utter shock of his first trip to the city, his eyes wide with childish wonder and gap-toothed smile constantly on his face. He’d pestered his father with questions about the mechanics of every contraption they passed on the street, and eventually Dad grew so tired that he just bought Sokka a book about it. (He probably regretted that decision later when Sokka insisted on repeatedly explaining the inner workings of the Satomobile, because wasn’t it just _awesome_ how even a non-bender like Hiroshi Sato could invent something so magical? Even now, with a near-constant headache from all the horn-honking and tire-squealing, it still fills him with wonder.)

It was actually this fascination with engineering that brought Sokka permanently back to the city ten years later for university. (Well, that and the epicness that was pro-bending. And no, he and Katara definitely did not sneak away to watch matches on their annual diplomatic visits. Seriously, you have no proof!) Did he imagine his degree would lead him to an apprenticeship in the lab of the kookiest inventor on the planet? Not exactly. But Varrick at least gives him the freedom to work on his own projects on the side, and the paychecks, while on the skimpy side, are enough to foot his bills until he’s good enough to land a job at Future Industries.

(Plus, Katara’s income from the hospital is certainly no chump change, and she may or may not be paying more than her fair share of their rent. Sokka would feel bad if it weren’t for the fact that her boyfriend works exclusively at non-profits and therefore contributes nothing other than gross heart-eyes at his sister.)

So, yeah. The city is loud, Sokka is tired, and the group of pre-teens on the trolley next to him _won’t shut up._ They’ve been gossiping about their classmate for literal eons, and Sokka’s half-tempted to interject on behalf of this mysterious “Lin” girl and her extra-thick glasses, because hey, one of his best friends is literally blind, and she could kick all of their asses a thousand times over!

Alas, Sokka is an “adult” or whatever, so he’s stuck in this hell. It isn’t until he’s in the midst of an intense staring contest with the fire ferret nestled in the lap of the old man seated across from him—one which he’s winning, he might add—that the tweens start having an actually interesting conversation.

“Hey, did you guys catch last night’s pro-bending match?”

Sokka’s ears prick up, as they do each time the sport is mentioned. He subtly shifts in his seat, angling himself closer to better hear the group over the dull roar of the trolley car.

“Yeah! I heard the Platypus Bears kicked ass!”

One of the kids, a short guy with the horrific, wispy beginnings of a mustache darkening the skin above his lip, pulls a booklet out of his jacket pocket.

“Check it out,” he says, brandishing it with a grin. “It’s got profiles on the entire tournament line-up.”

“No way!” the pink-haired girl to his left gasps. “Lemme see!”

She eagerly grabs the booklet from her friend, then wraps her arm around the nearby pole to keep her balance as she flips through the pages.

“Aha!” Pink-Hair exclaims after a moment. “I _knew_ I saw The Boulder at Pao’s! It says right here that’s his favorite tea shop!”

The third member of the group lowers her sunglasses to dramatically roll her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re still going on about that.”

“It’s not every day you meet a celebrity,” her friend argues.

“Just admit it,” Sunglasses teases. “You’re in love with him!”

Mustache-Guy winces at this.

 _Ah, middle school drama;_ Sokka does _not_ miss it.

“I’m not in love with him!”

Okay, that’s enough bickering for one day; if Sokka doesn’t zone back out now, there’s no way he’ll be able to handle Toph and Katara’s inevitable fighting at practice later.

“Besides,” Pink-Hair continues loudly, and dammit Sokka is _way_ too nosy not to listen in. “It’s not like your crush is any better!”

Sunglasses scoffs and snatches the booklet from her friend. She begins to flip through it aggressively, and Mustache-Guy looks ready to blow a blood vessel at the inevitable destruction of his property.

“Tell me this isn’t the most gorgeous man you’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Sokka cranes his neck to catch a glimpse—yes, he’s invested again, sue him—only to find himself staring at...himself?

(Oh, yeah—did he mention he coaches a pro-bending team?)

His image is plastered at the bottom of a two-page spread about the Flying Lemurs, the league’s official rookie team. The shot of him isn’t half bad, but it’s clearly less professional than the crisp, badass action shots of the team’s actual players. There’s his sister, looking fierce mid-water whip; Aang, manipulating an intricate ring of fire; and Toph, head thrown back in a maniacal cackle as she summons a massive boulder. There’s even a glossy picture of Momo flying through the crowd that _has_ to be fake, because Sokka knows from miserable experience that that stupid lemur spends every match climbing all over Sokka and stealing his food.

Pink-Hair shakes her head. “I don’t see it.”

_Ouch._

“Yeah,” Mustache-Guy chimes in. “He isn’t even a bender!”

Okay, Sokka knows the guy’s probably just agreeing with her because he has a crush, but _sheesh, words hurt, man._

“Neither are you,” Sunglasses retorts.

If this girl was, like, 10 years older, Sokka would be giving her the fattest hug right now.

“I’m not coaching a pro-bending team, though!”

For La’s sake, is that all _anyone_ cares about? Fans, reporters, haters...they’re obsessed with that stupid question, each and every one of them.

“I bet he only gets away with it because his sister is a master,” Mustache-Guy adds. “I almost feel bad for the dude.”

Sokka clenches his fists. No, he can’t do any fancy water magic. So what? With his genius strategies and play tactics, he pulls far more than just his own weight on the team.

...Right?

He kind of wants to pop off on the whiny little shit, except there’s no way to spin fighting a literal child as anything other than bad, so he has no choice but to slink down in his seat, bite his tongue, and count the trolley stops until the gym.

* * *

“Are you serious right now?”

Sokka glances away from his notes to see his sister, sweaty and glaring, all up in his face. “What?”

“We’ve been running the same set for an hour now!” she complains. “We need a break!”

“What we _need,”_ Sokka corrects, “is to be able to beat the Rabaroos in the tournament this weekend.”

“Come on,” Toph scoffs from across the room. “We can totally take them.”

She sends an impressive series of rock discs into the wall in a deafening thud as if to prove her point.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Toph’s right,” Katara says.

Toph grins like her birthday came early. “Now _that’s_ what I like to hear!”

“Guys,” Aang gently interrupts. “Sokka’s our coach for a reason.”

Sokka holds his head high, because _fuck yeah he is!_

“But maybe we should rest a little. I know it may not look like it, but bending’s exhausting.”

Ugh. He wants to be angry with Aang for playing the Tui-forsaken non-bender pity party card, which is almost as bad as the non-bender “you must be jealous” card. Except the monk has these big, innocent grey eyes that make him look like a kicked moose-lion cub and dammit, how the hell is he supposed to stay mad at that?

“Fine,” Sokka relents. “But we’re meeting here early tomorrow!”

Aang practically beams. “Thank you, Sifu Sokka!”

Katara shoots him a grateful look before heading towards the hall that leads to the locker rooms, her teammates close behind. Sokka sighs and starts to clean up his various notes and brushes.

He’s almost done straightening out the half-finished diagrams of a firebending tie-breaker move for Aang when the outside door to the training room creaks open.

“We have this place booked for another hour,” he calls over his shoulder, not bothering to look up.

As annoying as it is to have people barge in—because _hello,_ have you ever heard of this thing called a schedule?—it isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. (Yes, this is a callout for the Moose Lions. He doesn’t know how they do things in Makapu, but here they practice a little something called reading comprehension.)

“I’m not here to train.”

Sokka grimaces at the familiar, smarmy voice reverberating off the walls. Lovely. As if this day wasn’t bad enough already.

“What do you want, Jet?” he asks, turning around with a groan.

Jet raises his horrendous eyebrows in mock offense. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

“We’re not friends,” Sokka replies. “Never have been, never will be.”

Jet just grins around the stupid piece of wheat that’s perpetually in his mouth, and Spirits, Sokka _really_ wants to punch him. He settles for glaring at Jet until he spits out why the hell he’s here wasting Sokka’s time.

“Look,” Jet says. “I actually came to talk to you about something.”

Sokka groans. “For the last time, I’m _not_ helping you fix things with my sister.”

“I’m not here for Katara,” Jet replies. “Unless she’s asking for me?”

_Gag._

“In your dreams.”

Jet quirks his lips. “Her loss.”

Sokka crosses his arms, patience quickly waning. “So what did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, right. I thought you might be interested in this.”

He draws a flyer out from the inner pocket of his cargo jacket and holds it out. Cautiously, Sokka takes it. The sheet is mostly blank, just a series of red lines fanning out across the parchment like sunbeams. The circle at the inflection point—also a bloody crimson—contains a singular character within it: _EQUALITY._

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s for a group I’m part of, the Equalists,” Jet explains. “And I think you should join.”

“You want me,” Sokka repeats slowly, “to join your cult? _Again?”_

“This is bigger than the Freedom Fighters!” Jet interjects.

 _Yeah,_ Sokka wants to retort. _So is my toenail._

“Oh, great,” he replies sarcastically. “That’s just what I need: a _bigger cult!”_

“It’s not a cult!”

Sokka raises his brows.

“I’m serious! It’s a movement!”

Ugh. Even talking with Jet about Katara is better than this nightmare.

“Listen,” Jet says, and huh, is he actually being earnest for once in his damn life? “You and I both know the world looks down on us for not being benders. That’s why we’re trying to unite all the non-benders in Republic City, and then the Council will have no choice but to listen to us!”

Normally, Sokka would shoot back something along the lines of the world actually just looking down on Jet for being a human piece of garbage; but today has been long, and he’s exhausted, and Jet’s words may happen to be hitting a little too close to home.

“Just think about it, okay?” he asks. “We could use someone with a brain like yours.”

Sokka nods mutely.

“We’ll be at the abandoned power plant in the Dragon Flats borough at midnight.”

Jet doesn’t wait for a response before ducking out the door, which is rude as hell, and—

“Was that _Jet?”_

Oh. Yeah, okay, the sudden vanishing act makes sense. Sokka schools his features and crumples the flyer in his fist before turning to face his sister.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Don’t worry, though; I told him to fuck off. Again.”

“Good. I swear that idiot wouldn’t understand the word _dumped_ if it bit him in the butt.”

Aang chooses that moment to appear from the locker room in his street clothes, beanie half pulled on his head. He seems to be trying to puff his chest out all macho-like, as if he has an intimidating bone in his body. (To be fair, the pre-getting-his-ass-kicked-by-Suki version of Sokka would also be posturing if his girlfriend’s ex came prowling around. Funnily enough, him doing the same thing to Suki herself was actually why his then-partner knocked his masculinity down a few pegs in the first place.)

Katara must sense his insecurity, because she walks over to wrap an arm around her “sweetie.” (Spirits, that word is disgusting. If he ever starts saying gross stuff like that, please kill him on the spot.)

“I should go talk to him,” Aang says with all the bravado of a polar-dog puppy. “Give him a piece of my mind.”

The fight drains out of him when Katara plants a kiss overtop the arrow on his forehead, and he turns a violent shade of pink. Sokka resists the overwhelming urge to laugh, but Toph, mid-stomping out of the locker room, has no such inhibition. This only makes Aang blush harder, and he sheepishly tugs his hat down further.

Sokka should point out this is some major character development, because it took literal years for him and Katara to convince their friend it was maybe a bad idea to advertise being the Avatar when the Fire Lord has a warrant out for his capture that, despite being on the underground, less-than-legal black market (or whatever bandits call it these days), literally everyone knows about. Radio host extraordinaire Shiro Shinobi even did an entire story on it for his show, which Sokka, informed citizen that he is, 100% listens to for reasons besides Shinobi’s pro-bending commentary.

And sure, Aang is a skeptical dude; he did go from chilling in an iceberg for almost two centuries to finding the Fire Nation is lowkey plotting to take over the world, after all. But even the nomads at the Northern Air Temple—where Sokka and Katara graciously spent the latter half of their winter break taking him after accidentally breaking him out of cryostasis—had a hard time talking sense into him. No, it wasn’t until he followed them to Republic City and was wooed by the badass idea of forming a pro-bending team that he decided he should maybe keep the whole Avatar thing on the DL. It still kind of sucks that he has to play as a firebender, since all the other Air Nomads are too busy being pacifists to participate. (It should be noted that this suckiness stems from the fact that Aang now has to hide his arrow, not the firebender-related trauma that Sokka in no way has.)

But on the bright side, Aang is a damn good competitor, and Sokka knows for a fact he wouldn’t hurt a spiderfly. He even offers his own earthbending protection when Toph gets too overzealous in her rock-throwing. (Inviting his prickly, underground club-fighting friend from college to join his pro-bending team is both the best and worst idea Sokka’s ever had.) And he knew when he signed on that they’d be in the public eye—because Sokka is a fantastic coach and his now-teammates are literal masters—so he’d committed his summer to sitting in their apartment growing out his hair while Katara tore her hair out studying for medical school. (He technically didn’t even live with them yet, and there was probably some Mommy Monk worrying about him back on Air Temple Island—Sokka doesn’t know how monks work, okay?—but he was distracting Katara and bearing the brunt of her angry waterbending, so Sokka wasn’t going to complain.)

And now here he is: Aang, the Flying Lemurs’ firebender extraordinaire, who is in no way, shape, or form the Avatar. Yeah, you could say they’re killin’ it.

“Are you lily-livers done being gross? I need to go home and sleep because _someone_ is making us come to practice early!”

Sokka gulps as Toph glares at him with scary accuracy. He tries to meet her with an intimidating look of his own before remembering she can’t actually see him.

“Come on,” he attempts to reason. “I doubt your parents will be happy if they forked over twenty thousand yuans only for us to get knocked out in the first round.”

Yeah, Sokka helped put up the last ten thousand of the entry fee. Yeah, it’s impressive, please continue to applaud.

(...Okay, full disclosure: Katara _may_ have paid most of their share of the ante. But Sokka still contributed, so there!)

Toph just chuckles, and it’s completely terrifying. “Bold of you to assume my parents even know I do pro-bending.”

Sokka blinks once. Twice. _“What?!”_

* * *

So remember Sokka’s whole spiel earlier about Republic City being noisy as shit? Well, that applies to nighttime, too. Normally, Sokka and his total exhaustion can sleep through it easily enough, because his grind truly never stops. But now, because he’s an impulsive idiot, Sokka is in the goddamn Dragon Flats borough, and it’s a million times louder than the traffic outside his bedroom window.

He glances over his shoulder a few times to make sure he isn’t being followed, then pauses beneath a flickering street lamp. The Equalist flyer is still wrinkly in his pocket, where he’d stuffed it after obsessively looking it over for hours in his room, and he compulsively attempts to smooth it out again. At least the creases don’t make it too hard to read the address printed on the back.

(He’ll admit, when he first flipped it over, he’d half-expected to see a crudely drawn dick scrawled on it as some sort of stupid prank. Instead, it appeared Jet was actually telling the truth for once in his damn life.)

Sokka repeats the numbers to himself, glancing between the flyer and the darkened building in front of him. He’s like 99% sure it’s the power plant Jet mentioned, but it could also just be a random abandoned factory since Dragon Flats is positively overflowing with those.

He nervously checks his watch. It’s almost midnight. Shit. As much as he despises Jet, he probably should have asked him to meet him outside or something, because this is hopeless. He’s half-resigned to making the long trek back to the nearest trolley station, where he’ll wait fifty years to board a train filled with all the usual late-night transit-riding weirdos, when he spots a figure moving through the darkness.

“Excuse me!”

Sokka wants to kick himself the second the words are out of his impulsive mouth. What if he just called out to a criminal? Spirits, leave it to him to offer himself up to a serial killer on a silver platter.

The person continues to walk, and Sokka should be grateful for a chance to remain free of victimhood; instead, he’s annoyed. Like, really fucking annoyed. Why does everyone ignore him, or act like he’s less worthy of their time? Is it because he’s not some fancy noble? Is it because he isn’t a bender? It sure as hell isn’t because of his personality, which is an absolute _delight._

“Hey, asshole! I’m talking to you!”

The figure pauses. Sokka regrets being born.

“What?”

Their voice is somehow both clipped and raspy. It echoes through the deserted street, and Sokka involuntarily shivers. Shrouded in the shadows, the stranger almost looks like a ghost.

“I- I’m trying to find the old power plant.”

He feels a pair of eyes raking over him.

“Why?”

Shakily, Sokka holds up the flyer clutched in his hand. It flutters in the breeze, illuminated by the light overhead that flares with the wind.

“My friend—well, he’s not my friend, more of an asshole who used to date my sister—“

“Get to the point.”

“Right,” Sokka says, tugging at his shirt collar. “Well, he said there’s supposed to be a rally around here tonight.”

For a moment, there’s only silence. (Not counting the distant sirens or muffled music or car horns, that is.) Then, the stranger finally speaks.

“This way.”

Sokka nods and jogs over to the figure’s side, his brain realizing far too late that he may have just signed his death sentence a thousand times over. Yet for some reason, he trusts this person. Even enveloped in darkness and hidden by a hooded cloak tugged over their head, there’s something oddly alluring to them. (No way is Sokka unpacking _that_ any time soon.) He sees the edge of a gnarly burn scar creeping across the side of the person’s face, and suddenly he feels both angry and much more at ease; if someone got hurt by a firebender like that, they had every reason to hate the superiority of benders.

The stranger leads him further down the empty street. When they stop in front of a nondescript building—identical to every single one on the block, might he add—there’s the faint sound of chatter from inside. It grows when the figure pushes through the door, and Sokka can only stare with wide eyes at the massive crowd huddled within. Are they all non-benders? Are they all...like him?

He turns to thank his mysterious guide only to find himself alone. Huh. Their loss.

He wanders through the clusters of people for a little while. Some of them seem to be talking about work or joking around; others theorize about what news Amon will have for them tonight. (If Sokka hadn’t already met his impulsive decision quota for the day, he’d butt in and ask who and/or what Amon is.)

Most shocking, perhaps, is the fact that no one nation stands out. Sure, Republic City boasts its whole “united melting pot” schtick, but anyone who’s lived here for more than a few days knows that’s a load of crap. Except here...here, there is the familiar dark skin of tribesmen mingling with the bright orange of Air Nomad clothes and green Earth Kingdom eyes. There are even some people pale enough to be Fire Nation, and isn’t that a wild sight to behold.

He doesn’t see the person with the scar anywhere, and he doesn’t see Jet, either. He doesn’t have much time to feel awkward, though, because soon a guy in an unsettling white mask steps up to a makeshift podium. It’s punctuated by a red dot on the area covering his forehead, and the whole masked get-up thing reminds Sokka of the Blue Spirit, Republic City’s very own “masked menace,” with whom he may or may not be utterly obsessed.

“Greetings, non-benders of Republic City,” the man begins. “My name is Amon.”

The crowd cheers in excitement.

“Thank you, thank you,” Amon says until everyone quiets down. “I have noticed many new members gathered here tonight, so I thought I would share my story and remind us all of the cause we so valiantly fight for.

“My quest for equality began many years ago. When I was a boy, my family and I lived on a small farm. We weren't rich, and none of us were benders. This made us very easy targets for the firebender who extorted my father.”

Sokka winces in empathy for the feeling of helplessness he knows all too well.

“One day, my father confronted this man,” Amon continues, “but when he did…”

It’s clear the crowd is hanging on his every word; Sokka would be lying if he said he isn’t, too.

“...That firebender took my family from me.”

Memories of black snow and screaming and death rise unbidden in Sokka’s mind.

“Then, he took my face. I've been forced to hide behind a mask ever since.”

For a moment, Sokka wonders if the person he encountered outside was actually Amon; he certainly had the scar to prove it. But that stranger’s voice had been much deeper, so he highly doubts it. (Still, he makes a mental note to ask Jet about it later.)

“Those in power argue that bending brings balance to the world. But they are wrong. The only thing bending has brought to the world is suffering. It is time to end this oppression, and usher in a new era of equality for all!”

Raucous applause erupts around Sokka. The excited whistling and shouting rings in his ears, but for once he finds he doesn’t mind it.

For once, he thinks as he yells and claps his own hands, he will be the one making noise.

And finally, _finally,_ someone will have to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m not giving up on my other series/fics, but i got this idea in my head and it wouldn’t go away!


	2. li from the tea shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sokka runs into a familiar face on a quest for caffeine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’ll update my other fic eventually i swear
> 
> warning for smoking

“Aang, I wanna see some more hot-squats! Katara, try to make your water whip a little wider to protect Toph’s left. And Toph, keep it up with those earth rings! Remember what I said about the burst patterns?”

The training room is awry in organized chaos. Elements simultaneously swirl gracefully and slam into walls, a cacophony of madness in which Sokka is the trigger-happy conductor.

“Good footwork, sis! Just try not to lock your knees as much.”

Katara grunts in confirmation. Her arms remain upwards, manipulating the water in a smooth wave above her, as she adjusts her stance. Some of her hair has fallen loose from its tight braid, and the strands that aren’t frizzing up with humidity are plastered wetly to her forehead. (He’s pretty sure she’s started using some of her sweat as bending fodder, which is both awesome and disgusting, mostly because she makes it a personal goal to splash him at least five times a day.)

“I just did 25 more hot-squats, Sifu Sokka!” Aang calls. “Permission to take a water break?”

Sokka nods. Is it shallow that he thrives off the ego trip that is the Avatar’s strange, military-esque respect in practice (that is suspiciously not present when he’s being flirty and gross back at the apartment)?

“I want a break, too,” Toph complains. Rather than asking, she simply drops the earth rings in a cloud of dust and probably wrecks the floorboards in the process. Yeah. Classic Toph move, right there.

At least his sister has the courtesy to return her water to the skin strapped to her hip as she joins in on the unplanned break. Spirits, the talking-tos the gym owners have given Sokka about the dented walls and moldy ceilings over the years...

“We should go somewhere,” Katara says out of nowhere. “We’ve been training all day.”

Did Sokka slip into an alternate dimension when he wasn’t paying attention, or did his goody-two-shoes, “just because it’s the anniversary of Mom’s death we still need to go to class” sister just ask for time off?

“Hell yeah,” Toph agrees. “I’m tired as shit.”

Okay, that may be pushing it a little; practice wasn’t _that_ much harder than usual.

Toph shakes her head when he says as much. “I meant because you made us get up at the ass-crack of dawn, idiot.”

Oops. As the exhaustive headache slowly building behind his eyes attests to, he most certainly did.

“What if we got some tea to wake us up?” Aang suggests. When he notices Sokka’s unamused look—Aang and caffeine are a certifiable recipe for hyperactive disaster—he’s quick to clarify that, “I’ll get something herbal, I quadruple pinky swear!”

“Fine,” Sokka relents. “I heard about this place around here called Bao’s. Or Pao’s? I don’t know, something with an -ao.”

“I’ll give you a reason to say ‘ow’ if you don’t tell us where it is,” Toph threatens.

Sokka gulps. “I don’t know exactly where it is, but it has to be close, because this girl on the train said The Boulder goes there?”

“And you took that as a glowing review?” Katara asks with a huff.

Sokka flushes at the (likely justified) skepticism, but Aang lets it slide right past him.

“Come on!” he says eagerly. “I always love trying new places!”

Toph just shrugs. “As long as it has caffeine. Also, you’re paying.”

“Come _on,”_ Sokka whines. “Do I have to?”

The answer, when they arrive outside the tea shop showered and changed an hour later—curse Toph and her long-ass shower habits!—is yes. At least, that’s what the rumbling earth beneath his feet instills into his frantic heart.

“Okay, fine!” he hisses. “Quit making a scene!”

 _“You’re_ making a scene,” she replies.

“Quit bickering,” Katara interrupts. “Let’s go inside.”

She barely gives them a second to get their shit together before she pushes through the door. A bell jingles overhead as it swings open, announcing their arrival to the surprisingly decent number of patrons at Pao Family Tea House.

The shop itself isn’t much to look at. It’s actually kind of dull, to be honest, just a large room with rows of wooden tables. Maybe the lack of thrill is what The Boulder likes about it; as much as Sokka enjoys the hero worship, he has to admit the nonchalance of the mostly elderly customers towards the presence of pro-bending superstars is kind of refreshing.

“You guys go get a table,” he says, waving to Aang and Toph. “Me and Katara will go order.”

(Yes, he knows it should be “Katara and I.” He says it like that expressly to spite the demonic literature professor that tormented him during his first semester of college. Plus, the fact that it pisses his sister off, too, is just a big brotherly bonus.)

Aang rattles off his order once again with a request of “extra boba, Sokka, please you have to remember, it’s important!” Toph follows with hers and an added threat that “if there’s so much as a single tapioca ball anywhere near my drink I’ll kick your ass.” She punches him in the arm _(ouch!)_ for good measure before following Aang towards an empty table in the corner.

Sokka rolls his eyes fondly, then turns his attention back to the intimidatingly large list of drinks painted onto the board hanging above the counter. Some of these teas _have_ to be made up, right? For real, what the actual fuck is an “oolong” and why does the word look like that?

His mission to scan for the sugariest, least leafy tea on the menu is cut short by the harsh clearing of someone’s throat in front of him and a raspy ask of, “Can I help you?”

Sokka’s first instinct is to reply with a snarky remark along the lines of “you can help me by sucking on a lozenge or something, because goddamn your dry-ass throat literally hurts to listen to.” (It’s still in the joke revision stage, okay? Spirits, everyone’s a fucking critic.)

His second instinct is to recoil and make a scene, because not only does he love being the center of attention, he also _recognizes_ that deep, scratchy voice.

“It’s you!” he gasps.

The “you” in question is staring at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Sokka hadn’t gotten a good look at him before, but from this head-on angle, the extent of the damage to his face is much more apparent. The scar nearly consumes his entire left eye, leaving it slitted and covered in a milky white sheen reminiscent of those overtop Toph’s pupils. The reddened skin trails down the side of his neck until it meets the green strap of the apron tied around his neck. A small nametag pinned to the cloth reads “Li.”

Sokka’s mouth gets kind of dry, then, because he’s finally processed the fact that holy shit, his nighttime navigational hero is _hot._ La have mercy: the dark and mysterious version of the guy has _nothing_ on the abject beauty of him under the sunlight.

He may or may not be actively drooling when Li clears his throat again.

“I just meant it’s- well, it’s you!” Sokka rambles. “From yesterday!”

Li blinks at him slowly. Sokka would think he’d imagined the entirety of last night if he wasn’t so damn exhausted, or the guy’s scar wasn’t quite so distinct. Or, you know, if the dude’s fists weren’t currently clenched, white-knuckled, at his sides.

“Wait, where did you go yesterday?” Katara interjects with a frown.

Sokka’s brain screeches to a halt.

“Nowhere!” he squeaks, hoping to the high heavens that Toph and her freaky lie-detecting feet aren’t listening in. “I just- during my lunch break at work, I thought I saw…” He gestures at Li.

“That inventor has you breathing in too many fumes,” Katara tuts.

Sokka hurries to defend Varrick—who may be a bit overzealous but is also a verifiable genius (not to mention the signer of Sokka’s paychecks)—before he realizes his sister has inadvertently offered him an out. 

“You’re probably right,” he agrees with all the false sincerity he can muster.

He turns back to Li, who’s been silently watching the exchange with a combination of distrust and confusion. “Sorry, man. My bad.”

“It’s fine,” Li replies tightly. “Now are you going to order? We do have other customers, you know.”

Katara huffs behind him, and Sokka really wants to be pissed, too, because _hello, paying patrons here?_ But he also lowkey almost outed some politically radical extracurriculars that probably wouldn’t go over well with Li’s boss, so the least he can do is act civil while he rattles out the order and pays.

“Ugh,” Katara groans as soon as they’re out of earshot. “I can’t believe how rude that guy was!”

“What happened?” Aang asks, his eyes wide with a frightening amount of concern.

Sokka wants to smack himself. He settles for handing out the pastries he’d ordered from the display at the counter, since he’s generous like that.

“Sokka told the person taking our orders that he thought he recognized him, and he just snapped at us!”

Toph rolls her eyes as she bites into her egg custard tart. (Seriously, how does she even know how to _do_ that?) “Have you ever worked in customer service, Sweetness?” she asks around a mouthful of food. “Because it’s a bitch.”

Sokka would like to point out that he’s 1000% certain that the heiress of the oh-so-noble Beifong family has also never worked in customer service, but he elects to keep it to himself. Getting hit with rocks in public isn’t exactly ideal.

“Maybe he’s just having a bad day,” Aang suggests. “The monks always say you should never assume what someone’s going through.”

Personally, Sokka thinks he can confidently assume that the stick up Li’s ass is a terminal condition; but since he’d rather not draw the attention back to himself, he opts to take a hurried bite out of his pastry—Tui and La, that’s some good shit right there—instead of running his mouth.

“Order for...Socko?” a female, non-Li barista calls.

Nevermind, effort wasted. All eyes and teasing grins are back on him. He groans as he rises to his feet, doing his best to ignore the fits of giggles erupting at the table around him.

“Har, har,” he says sarcastically. “Keep laughing it up and I’ll spill your drinks.”

The mirth on Toph’s face hardens so suddenly that Sokka sees his life flash before his eyes. “Try it and I’ll spill you into the ground.”

Okay, first of all, that threat doesn’t even make sense! He knows she was trying for a pun, but she should really stick to being menacing and leave the jokes to him.

The woman who messed up his name smiles at him as he retrieves their order, and she seems so sincere that Sokka’s willing to overlook the verbal butchering. Forgive and forget, and all that jazz. Hell, he’s so kind and absolving that he won’t even mess up _her_ name!

“Thanks, Jin,” he says with a wink.

She blushes and turns away. _Yeah, he’s still got it._

He feels the prickle of someone watching him on the back of his neck when he sets the drinks down on the table with minimal spillage. A quick glance over his shoulder confirms that yep, Li is definitely staring at him. He doesn’t even bother trying to hide it when he notices Sokka’s gaze, and it’s actually super annoying. Just who does this guy think he is?

He returns his attention to his friends after some violent pestering on Toph’s part, but he finds even her objectively hilarious retelling of some guy’s ass she kicked in an Earth Rumble isn’t enough to keep his mind from wandering.

Li is clearly Fire Nation. There’s no mistaking those golden eyes, not to mention that freakishly pale skin. Like, has he even _heard_ of melanin? Sheesh. And he knows that not everyone from the Fire Nation is bad, yadda yadda yadda, but can you blame him for being a little suspicious?

And he wishes that he could say he’s just skeptical. That he could blame it on suspicion of a genealogy inextricably tied to an empire on a warpath, no matter how distant that relation may be.

But the truth is that Sokka’s fascinated. Or maybe morbidly curious is a better word. Yeah, intrigued enough to inevitably cause his own destruction sounds about right. Is it objectifying if he calls Li a puzzle he wants to take a crack at? Because dammit, between the mysterious scar, Equalist ideals and all-around attractiveness, he just wants to figure this guy out.

“...and—Sokka, are you even listening?”

“Wha—“ Sokka startles so suddenly that he lodges a tapioca ball in his throat. He begins to cough violently, his eyes watering as he chokes. Toph pounds him on the back a few times—he swears she just looks for any excuse to hit him—and it’s enough to finally dislodge the obstruction in his throat.

The boba goes flying through the air in what feels to Sokka like slow motion. If this was a mover, he’d be reaching out all dramatically with a drawn-out, low-pitched cry of _“noooooo!”_ But this isn’t a mover, it’s his sucky life; and so he can only watch in horror as that La-forsaken tapioca ball seemingly defies the laws of physics and lands smack dab in the middle of Li’s forehead.

The boba sticks for a lengthy second, then drops down to the empty tray in Li’s hand with a _splat_. Sokka wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

The server is staring at him in a shock that’s quickly morphing into disgust. Sokka hadn’t even noticed him approaching their table to clear the crumb-covered dishes, and now he can’t do anything but gape. (He’s half-convinced his obsessive thinking about Li caused him to manifest in some sort of Spirit fuckery.)

“Oh my god,” he says in a rush. “I am so so _so_ sorry.”

Li’s unscarred eye twitches. He doesn’t reply to Sokka’s hurried apology, simply grits his teeth and collects the last of their plates. The unspoken rules of food service etiquette probably dictate that he asks if they need anything else, but Sokka is too mortified to care about the rudeness.

Toph lets Li get all of two steps away before beginning to cackle.

“Damn, Snoozles,” she laughs. “That’s embarrassing, even for you.”

(She came up with the stupid “Snoozles” nickname when he accidentally fell asleep on her shoulder during a supremely boring lecture freshman year. She claimed he drooled and suckered him into doing her homework for the rest of the semester, but Sokka got a miniature friend to both love and hate out of the deal, so he’ll take it.)

He sighs and lets his head fall into his hands. “Why am I alive?”

Aang pats his shoulder. “There, there.”

Sokka takes another minute to wallow (he’s earned it!) before peeking out from behind his fingers. “I should go talk to him, right? Make sure he’s okay?”

Katara shrugs. She still seems kind of miffed at Li’s comment from before; and if there’s one thing his sister’s good at, it’s holding grudges. Now Aang, on the other hand…

“I think he’d really appreciate that.”

“Right,” Sokka says, dragging himself up to stand. “Here I go. If I’m not back in ten minutes, tell Dad and Bato I love them.”

He hears Katara snort and Aang’s call of “good luck!” behind him. Toph is probably just silently judging him. Whatever.

Jin is the only one behind the counter when he reaches it. She’s brewing some sort of loose-leaf tea that looks far classier than anything he and his friends had ordered, and he winces as he hesitantly interrupts her.

“Do you know where Li is? I kind of, uh, spat boba in his face? Accidentally!” he quickly amends. “I just wanted to, er, apologize. Again.”

Jin gives him a once-over, then shrugs. “He’s out on a smoke break. He should be around back.”

Oh, great. Now Sokka’s potentially responsible for _stress-smoking?_

He mumbles out a thanks before heading out of the side door. Sure enough, Li is leaning against the back of the building, a cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. His apron is gone, leaving him in a tight-fitting, long-sleeved shirt. It’s black, because that’s apparently the only color of clothing the guy owns, and the sleeves are scrunched up to just below his elbows.

Sokka’s mouth is dry. He blames it on the secondhand smoke.

“Li?” he asks hesitantly.

The man slowly turns to look at him, taking a long drag as he does. He blows the smoke out almost lazily. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Like, for the boba thing, which was really gross, and also talking about the, uh, _other thing_ before.”

Li seems to study him for a moment. “You apologize a lot.”

“Yeah, well. I have a lot to be sorry for.”

On the next inhale, Li tilts his head back, revealing the pale skin of his neck. Sokka feels lightheaded.

“You know,” Li says as he exhales. “That’s hardly the worst thing a customer’s done to me.”

Sokka quirks his brow. He may not be the best at making amends, but playful banter? Sign him the fuck up. “Oh, really?”

“Yep,” Li replies shortly.

That seems to be as much information as he’s willing to give, and Sokka feels his face deflate. Spirits, he can’t even imagine how dumb he looks right now.

Li clears his throat again. “Anyways, I should, uh, head back in.”

Sokka can’t help but watch with far-too-rapt attention—self-preservation whom?—as Li drops the remnants of his cigarette to the ground and snuffs out the butt with the bottom of his shoe.

“Oh, right!” Sokka says, trying his best to sound casual. “I didn’t mean to, like, get in the way of your job or anything.”

Li shrugs. Sokka gets the distinct feeling that his new pal would very much prefer cosmic interference to going back on the clock.

“I’ll see you around?” Sokka offers hopefully.

(Why is he so weirdly obsessed with Li? For all the mental fanfare, you’d think he had a crush on the guy or something. Which is stupid. So completely, totally stupid. Ridiculous beyond all levels of ridiculousness. He hates to be the schmuck that says it, but dear Spirits everything about the whole situation is preposterous.)

Li purses his lips. “We’ll see.”

That is...not the answer Sokka expected.

“Okay, well.” (Think, Sokka, think! You’re a master people-pleaser, remember?) “Good...talking to you, then?”

Li just sighs and dramatically disappears through the door to the teahouse’s backroom, leaving Sokka alone with nothing but awkward embarrassment and the lingering smell of smoke for company.

He is suddenly overwhelmed with the certainty that there is no way in hell he’s going back inside of Pao’s. Not now, not ever. Seriously, he’ll bang on the window to draw his friends outside so he doesn’t have to face the awkwardness!

He knows in the back of his mind that he’s totally going to eat his words, and not just because the other half of his egg custard tart is calling his name. But it’s fine, everything’s fine. Really.

* * *

Update: everything is not fine.

It’s—Sokka squints at his watch in the dim glow of his bedside lamp—five in the fucking morning, and for the life of him he just. Can’t. Sleep.

He’s long accepted the fact that he can never sleep the night before a match, but _Spirits_ if he doesn’t want to bash his brains out right about now. The whole insomnia thing is both a blessing and curse, with an emphasis on the _curse._ Because yeah, he’s tired as hell; only getting a few hours of shut-eye will do that to you. But there’s also something kind of nice about waking up before the rest of the world (or, rather, his hyperactive roommate and annoying little sister).

There’s a pressure building behind his eyes. It’s not quite painful yet, though he knows from miserable experience that the power-throuple of exhaustion, hunger and caffeine withdrawal has the potential to cause a real bitch of a headache.

He drags himself out of bed with a dramatic sigh that morphs into a yawn halfway through. He misses the warmth of his blankets and furs the second his feet touch the cold floor, and he hurriedly throws a robe on over his half-naked body. (The fabric has a hilariously crude image of Momo stitched onto the back of it, a relic of the Flying Lemurs’ pre-official-merch era. It’s also a relic of his sister’s constant rants about how disgusting it is that Sokka only sleeps in boxers.)

Nestling into the fabric, Sokka pads his way into the kitchen. It’s not much to look at, but it’s home. He hums to himself as he lights the stove and fills the slightly-dented kettle with water. Once he sets it on the burner, he ducks down to the cupboard beneath the sink. There, past all the cleaning supplies that Katara insists he doesn’t know how to use—a statement which is both wrong and unfair, especially considering she and Aang both have the ability to instantly power-wash the entire apartment with a flick of their magical wrists—is what Sokka lovingly refers to as his Secret Box.

(Full disclosure, the original Secret Box is still under his bed, but considering the nature of its contents, it’s been upgraded to the title of Secret-est Box. And whatever you’re guessing is in there...well, there’s a decent chance you’re right.)

He glances over his shoulder to make sure he’s alone before pulling the container out. He knows Katara has probably snooped through it before—Spirits, his sister is so fucking nosy—but has kept her mouth shut for the greater good of the apartment. Because if Aang ever got his hands on these...La help them all.

With an almost religious reverence, Sokka opens the box and inhales deeply. Yep, just as disgustingly smelly as he remembers it.

He plucks one of the baggies out of the container, holding it by the string neatly wrapped around it. Varrick may be a little nutso, but he’s also kind of a genius. I mean, who would’ve thought to put tea in a _bag?_

(Wait, what did _you_ think was in the box?)

He plops the bag into an empty mug, then seals and returns the container to its hiding place. He’d been admittedly suspicious when his boss first proposed a so-called “energy juice,” but the stuff—while foul-tasting—has gotten him through many long days. And considering their match is the latest of the four tonight, he’s sure gonna need it. (Damn, what he wouldn’t give to have had the stuff in college.)

Sokka removes the kettle from the stove once the steam starts to hiss, and only spills a little as he fills his cup. He makes to stick it in the sink to wash later, but who is he kidding? There’s no way he’s only having one serving of the stuff.

He sets the kettle off to the side instead before heading to the table. He wishes he could do that thing where he dramatically stares out at the rooftops of the city and contemplates his existence while he drinks, but the lone kitchen window faces an alleyway. Man, he hates landlords. Isn’t rent just a social construct, anyways?

He’s pulled from his radical musings—a great distraction from the disgusting flavor of his tea, by the way—by the phone ringing. Who the fuck is calling them at—holy shit, it still isn’t even six? _How?_ Spirits, someone take one for the team and put him out of his misery.

He sets down his drink and makes his way over to the device, holding the receiver up to his ear. “Hello?”

He winces at the scratchiness of his voice, but the person on the other end of the line doesn’t seem to care.

“Sokka! Just who I wanted to talk to!”

Something bittersweet crawls up Sokka’s throat.

“Hey, Suki,” he replies with a tight smile.

Things with Suki are...complicated. Ish.

Like, on the one hand, they are very much not dating anymore. They’re also not casually hooking up, as they did for a while following their post-graduation break-up. And that’s all fine and dandy—it would be a real dick move not to respect her decision that she needed some time without a serious relationship—except for the fact that she is now very much in a serious relationship, just not with him.

That’s probably the part that hurts worse than the distance or the end to pretty great sex; because it means she hasn’t sworn off all relationships, just relationships _with him._

Is that selfish and petty? Maybe. It’s just...he loved her. It was too scary to admit at the time, and a part of him wonders if that’s why she went back to Kyoshi Island after school. If, in the alternate universe where he wasn’t so much of a coward, he’d still have her in his life.

“I just wanted to wish you good luck tonight,” Suki says. “Kyiko and I will be listening to the whole thing!”

Ah yes, Kyiko: Suki’s badass warrior girlfriend. Sokka hopes the tightness in his words as he thanks her isn’t too obvious.

“Won’t that be super late?” he wonders upon remembering time zones are a thing.

“Who cares?” Suki replies. “It’s not every day your best friend competes in a pro-bending tournament!”

That hurts for a whole host of reasons, so Sokka decides on the least painful one to address.

“I’m not competing,” he corrects. “I’m coaching.”

_I’m not a bender._

“That makes you the most important member of the team!”

Sokka blushes and does his best to tamp down the mushy feelings blossoming in his chest.

“Thanks, Sukes,” he says, the nickname slipping out involuntarily.

“Of course, Wang Fire.”

“I thought we agreed we’d never mention that!”

”I thought _you_ said it was perfectly normal, and plenty of guys nicknamed their—“

“Okaythanksbye!”

Sokka slams the phone down before Suki can further embarrass him, accidentally knocking over his half-drunken tea in the process. The mug shatters as it hits the floor, and the noise is enough to send Aang bounding in like a concerned puppy.

“Is everything okay? Is that tea? And what’s that smell?”

Sokka stares down at the porcelain shards and the last of his much-needed caffeine (and peace and quiet) seeping through the floorboards.

Spirits, it’s going to be a long day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any feedback or other things you want to see so far?


	3. round one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the pro-bending tournament begins, and sokka parties a little too hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy zukka week (?)
> 
> warning for drinking and mild violence

To say Sokka is nervous would be an understatement.

He’s been hyperventilating on and off ever since his chat with Suki, and the anxiety has only grown more consuming as the minutes until the match ticked down. (And no, he still doesn’t know how he feels about that, but he can only (poorly) deal with one crisis at a time, so his emotions toward his ex will have to wait.)

The flutter-bats in his stomach are having an all-out rave on his internal organs, and he can hardly focus on the two teams currently duking it out on the platform.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he says for what Katara claims to be the 50th time today.

“Lighten up, Snoozles,” Toph says, smirking at the air a few degrees to Sokka’s left.

The grin slips off her face when Katara unceremoniously slips a helmet over her head.

“Hey, watch it!” she snaps, stomping and sending up a burst of rocks.

She scowls as she adjusts the visor over her face. “Someone get my hair out of here before I kill someone.”

Katara huffs and pulls the stray locks of hair out from beneath Toph’s helmet with a motherly gentleness.

“There,” she says, leaning back to admire her handiwork.

“Ooh! Do mine next!” Aang calls.

Aang scurries up to Katara so quickly that, if Sokka didn’t know better, he’d almost think he was airbending, which he  _ better not be.  _ (Hear that, telepathic Avatar powers that may or may not exist?  _ No airbending!) _

He blushes when Katara presses a kiss to the tip of the arrow on his forehead— _ gross!— _ before repositioning the headband to cover the tattoo entirely. She then slides the helmet over his head to lock it in place.

(If the kid was a full-blooded firebender, the visor would definitely be melting right off his face. It’s a funny image, but also a disgusting one, because  _ that’s his sister! _ Ugh!)

He looks away from the lovebirds to watch Toph struggle with the green fabric belt designating her as an earthbender. He knows from numerous, excruciating experiences that Toph interprets any offers of help as pitying and therefore pummel-worthy offenses, so Sokka keeps his mouth shut.

True to form, she straight-up refuses any assistance whatsoever, and proceeds to tie the sash in a knot so tangled it hurts to look at. Whatever.  _ He’s  _ not gonna be the one who gets stuck unraveling it later, no siree. Seriously, he better not be!

His sister and Aang have fared better with their belts, and wow, with their professional get-ups on, they kind of look like an actual team. Fuck, he may actually shed a manly tear!

Katara interrupts him from his not-crying with a poke on the shoulder.

“What’s up?” he asks, adamantly refusing to sniffle.

“I forgot to take my necklace off at home. Could you hold onto it for me?”

She holds the jewelry up in her outstretched palm, the carved stone glinting in the light.

Well, shit. There go all plans of composure.

“Of course,” he replies as he takes it shakily.

The pendant is cool against his skin, and he squeezes it tightly before slipping it into his pocket.

“You guys are gonna do great out there,” he says, hoping the anxiety doesn’t bleed into his voice.

“Thanks, Sifu Sokka!” Aang replies brightly.

Toph doesn’t add anything to the sappy fan-fest, but he thinks he sees the barest hint of a grin on her face. (Granted, that could be from the high she’s still riding from ripping the soles of her new shoes clean off the second they touched her nasty-ass toes.)

The pseudo pep-talk comes to an abrupt end when an arena staffer pokes their head in.

“Flying Lemurs?” they confirm. “You guys are on deck. Please follow me to the side of the ring.”

Oh, Spirits. Is the world spinning, or is that just him?

A final warm hug from Katara draws him back to his (still slightly off) center of gravity, and then, with a final wave from Aang and a punch from Toph, the team follows the staffer out of the room.

“Good luck!” he calls. “Be safe! Remember all my wisdom!”

He hears the tail-end of Katara’s good-natured snort before the door clicks closed.

The air and forced optimism exit his lungs in a rush, leaving him lightheaded and dizzy. Should he sit down? He should probably sit down.

He slides onto a bench with a sigh. His head falls into his hands, and he squeezes his eyes shut to concentrate on his breathing. He really needs to get a grip. His team is out there getting ready to compete, and he’s about to lose his lunch in a locker room.

One of his hands shakily snakes into his pocket to clutch at Mom’s necklace. He’s seen Katara do the same thing countless times, rubbing her fingers over the cool stone in some spiritual plea for strength. Can he even derive luck from it if he doesn’t have that bender-y connection to the divine?

(Does he even deserve to if he can barely remember his mother’s face?)

He hears the roar of the crowd rumbling ever-louder through the wall. The current match must be almost over, then. Time to put a cap on his miniature pity party.

He pockets the necklace, then stands and exits the room with a sigh. He quickly realizes that the arena’s sound-proofing infrastructure must be top-notch, because the audience is  _ deafening.  _ It’s nothing like the cheers at the matches they’ve played before; no, this is the big leagues, through and through.

The stands are too busy for him to find a random seat—curse these people and their ability to actually afford tickets!—so he snakes his way over to the press box. Shinobi sits in the center in all his glory, microphone clasped in his gloved hand.

“The remaining Zebra Frog has been backed into Zone Three. This is it, everyone. Hasook is gearing up with a massive wave, and he shoots! He scores!”

There’s a loud splash, and the crowd goes wild.

“The Ba Sing Se Badgermoles win!” the ringside announcer shouts.

Sokka lets out a tiny whoop of his own as he clambers up the side of the press box and onto the tiny alcove above it. He’d discovered it before the team had officially formed, back when he was both incredibly broke and overzealously obsessed with pro-bending. His solution? Sneaking into the arena.

The loose panel behind the alcove makes for easy entry; and while he’d typically climb down and find an actual seat in the bleachers, the view from up here isn’t bad. Plus, he gets to hear Shinobi’s real-time commentary, which is sick!

“Folks,” Shinobi says beneath him, “We’re reaching the end of the first set of matches in our single elimination sixteen team bracket. And I gotta tell ya, these are the most tenacious and talented bending trios this arena has ever seen.”

His commentary is on point, but Sokka’s attention is quickly drawn to the announcer, who’s stepped into the ring.

“Introducing our final team, the Red Sands Rabaroos!”

The Rabaroos move into the spotlight and wave to the crowd. Ugh, what douches. Prepare to get wrecked, assholes!

“And their opponents,” the announcer continues, “the Flying Lemurs!”

The trio takes the stage, and Sokka damn near loses his mind.

“That’s my team!” Sokka shouts to no one in particular. “That’s my sister!”

“The rookie Lemurs came from out of nowhere and have made it further than anyone expected this season,” Shinobi says as the competitors take their places in the first zone. “But can they make it in the tournament of the best pro-benders in the world?”

Maybe it’s the adrenaline talking, but Sokka finds himself screaming the affirmative.

The bell rings.

“And they’re off!” Shinobi announces. “The two teams waste no time trying to blast each other out of zone one!”

Sokka watches as Aang immediately shoots out a powerful fire blast, forcing the other team’s earthbender to dodge. The Rabaroos’ firebender flings one back, but Katara easily intercepts it with a water whip.

“Hell, yeah!” he cheers. “Go, sis, go! Show that firebender who’s boss!”

Aang seems to be a popular target—probably because everyone (rightfully) thinks he’s a softie—as the opposing earthbender sends a series of rings hurtling towards him. He destroys them with an arc of flames (and, if Sokka had to guess, a laugh). He retaliates with two more fireballs, one of which leaves the Rabaroos’ waterbender diving to the ground.

Pfft. Amateurs.

“Umi is the first to feel the heat of the Lemurs! She tries to return the favor, but they're too fast for her.”

Sokka stifles a giggle as Umi clambers back to her feet, struggling to manipulate a wave that Katara could bend in her sleep.

“I am astonished with the level of improvement displayed here by the Flying Lemurs,” Shinobi continues. “They’ve obviously had their noses to the grindstone in the gym.”

Not to name any names, but they can thank a certain super fantastic coach for that. (He means himself, if that wasn’t clear.)

“The Lemurs advance into Rabaroo territory and are holding nothing back. Nice sprawl there by Aang. Toph strikes, Ula dodges, and all three Rabaroos are down. The Flying Lemurs easily take round one!”

Sokka pumps his fist as the first scoring sign turns blue.

The teams—one noticeably wetter and angrier—take their places in zone one again. Then, at the bell, the elements start flying.

Umi spearheads the revenge effort, bending with an aggression wholly at odds with the flowing style waterbending embodies. She’s rigid, almost like a firebender; Sokka just knows it’s going to bite her in the ass.

“The Rabaroos are looking for payback and they go straight after Toph,” Shinobi narrates. “Katara comes to her defense and water-whacks Umi back into zone two! The Lemurs are on fire tonight and they win round two.”

Called it.

“Round three!”

The Rabaroos are getting sloppier, forfeiting strategy in favor of lashing out at the slightest opportunity. Sokka’s team, bless their hearts, are sticking to the plays and diagrams he painstakingly drew out and drilled. Spirits, he’s so damn proud of them.

“With the Rabaroos down two rounds they'll need a knockout to win, and with the way the Flying Lemurs are playing I don't see that happening. These Lemurs are working together like a well-oiled bending machine. Toph passes Adi back into zone two and the Lemurs get the green light to advance. The Rabaroos are just fighting to stay at their feet at this point. Out goes Adi, and Ula, and Umi!”

Sokka flat-out shrieks as the Rabaroos hit the water in a series of splashes, jumping to his feet only to smash his head into the ceiling. (At least no one saw that...right?)

He scrambles down from his perch as the announcer proclaims the Flying Lemurs to be the match’s winner, and it takes several minutes of pushing through a mostly-excited audience (featuring a creepily large subset of fans specifically in love with his sister) to reach the locker room. Aang darts in moments later, Toph and Katara hot on his heels.

“We did it!” Aang shouts giddily. “I can’t believe we did it.”

Toph bends herself a bench and plops down on it. “I told you we would.”

“Did you see that arc move I did when Ula sent that earth ring at me?”

“Oh, yeah,” Toph replies. “You looked  _ so  _ cool doing it.”

“Thanks, I—hey!”

Sokka barks out a laugh. (What? Toph’s blind jokes are funny when they’re not at his expense!)

He lets the bickering continue in the background as he turns to Katara, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “I’m proud of you, sis.”

“Thanks,” she says with a smile. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Sokka ducks his head so she doesn’t see him blush. He glances up again to address his team once the danger of embarrassment has passed.

“You guys were great out there,” he says, grinning so hard that his cheeks hurt. “Now what do you say you guys hit the showers, and then we go celebrate?”

* * *

What starts as a victory toast quickly morphs into a celebratory round of shots, and then somewhere along the way it evolves into a strange hybrid party slash meet-and-greet complete with adoring fans, EDM, and a caged, semi-domesticated tigerdillo.

Yeah, Sokka isn’t really sure how he ended up here, either.

It would probably be okay—or less migraine-inducing, at the very least—if Sokka wasn’t trapped in the purgatory that is “maintaining enough sobriety to wrangle three overexcitable young adults because he’s somehow the mature one here.”

Seriously, Aang has nearly blown his cover like fifteen times in the hour they’ve been here. How hard is it to say you’re an orphan raised by monks who just happens to be a firebender? Spoiler alert: it’s not!

The good news is that Sokka had the foresight to hide the stupid airbending-trick marbles, so now Aang can only impress his gaggle of fans with flammable party tricks. What a shame.

(Not that Sokka’s jealous, though. He doesn’t care that he can’t wow the crowd with magic, or that only a few randos asked for his autograph before moving on to bigger and better things. He  _ maybe  _ cares a little that the bartender refuses to prioritize him, but that’s beside the point.)

Sokka sighs into his half-empty drink. He’s just sober enough to be flat out exhausted, and he doesn’t even care how lame that makes him sound. Maybe he should just head home for the night; moping in his pajamas sounds much better than sulking at a loud-ass bar, in his bonafide opinion.

He bids farewell to the watery remnants of his cocktail. It’s still weirdly luminescent, even with all the melted ice, so Sokka may actually be doing his poor, poor liver a favor. Huh. Who would’ve thought?

“Excuse me,” he grumbles as he pushes his way through the crowd. “Super important coach coming through.”

The group currently clustered around his sister refuses to give him so much as an inch. It’s like they’re hypnotized, trapped making goo-goo eyes at the water magic that, when you really think about it, isn’t even that cool!

He tries to circumvent the fanboys by climbing over the empty chairs pushed against the wall, but there must be a little more party juice sloshing around in his brain than he thought, because he ends up slipping and falling flat on his ass.

He groans, wincing at the bruises he can already feel forming.

“Holy shit! You good, dude?”

Someone’s hand is suddenly  _ way _ too close to Sokka’s face, but once he gets over the initial shock, he accepts the help. He grunts as his savior hauls him back up to his feet; the motion is a bit too overzealous, and Sokka ends up crashing right into the guy’s chest.

“Fuck, sorry—wait,  _ Jet?”  _ He untangles himself from Jet’s gangly limbs with a suspicious squint. “What are you doing here?”

“Celebrating?” Jet replies, a furrow in his ugly eyebrows. “What else?”

Sokka sighs. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

“I listened to the whole game. You guys killed it out there!”

Is Jet a little drunk? The hint of a flush on his cheeks says yes. Is Sokka going to allow that fact to discredit the pride that swells inside him at one of the few compliments he’s earned all night? No, no he is not.

“Thanks, man,” he replies.

Jet nods enthusiastically. (Yeah, definitely not sober.)

“Hey, do you wanna get out of here?”

Dammit,  _ just  _ when Sokka thought he was enjoying this conversation...

“Jet, if you think I wouldn’t rather jump off a cliff than sleep with you, you are sorely mistaken.”

Jet chuckles as though Sokka isn’t being deadly serious.

“I just meant leaving this bar,” he says. “Some of my Freedom Fighters are working on Equalist posters, and Pipsqueak managed to swipe a barrel of cactus juice from some fancy Earth Kingdom transport.”

Sokka bites his lip. Potential moral dilemma of stealing aside, he does love a good drink and any excuse to show off his art skills. Still... “I don’t know. I don’t want to leave them here alone.”

He nods towards the rest of his team, who are still surrounded by a gaggle of adoring fans.

“They’ll be fine,” Jet replies. “They’ve got their magic powers, remember?”

“Yeah,” Sokka says slowly, eyes once again drawn to the water swirling around Katara’s head. “I guess you’re right.”

Jet grins. “Come on. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

* * *

The trolley ride to Jet’s apartment is surprisingly pleasant. Being out of the bar is truly refreshing, and the trio of hippies busting out a rendition of “Secret Tunnel” are shockingly not terrible.

They sit in silence for the most part, watching the city streets rush by outside the windows. It’s almost—dare he say it?—nice.

“Come on,” Jet says once they pass into the Dragon Flats borough. “My stop is the next one.”

Sokka stands and follows him, (unfortunately) sober enough not to trip when the train lurches to an aggressive halt. Ah, good ol’ public transit.

Jet’s apartment is a few blocks from the station. The area is...kind of sketchy, if Sokka’s being honest. And he means that in the least judgmental way possible. There are just a lot of flickering street lights and dark alleys and abandoned storefronts, and he can’t shake the feeling of being watched.

“Here we are,” Jet announces finally. “Home, sweet home.”

Did the definition of “home” change when Sokka wasn’t paying attention, or does Jet really consider this dilapidated building to be anything other than a massive health code violation?

Whatever. Sokka was promised cactus juice, and he intends to collect. If he slips and breaks his neck on these rickety stairs, he hopes Katara gets something nice.

Jet pulls out a key when they reach the third-floor landing, unlocking the door with a flourish to reveal the bachelor pad to end all bachelor pads. (Seriously, please end them; the futons and dirty dishes are begging to be put out of their misery.)

The open floor plan means that he can see both the extent of disorganization and the frankly impressive number of people crammed inside in one fell swoop.

“Hey, everyone,” Jet announces. “This is Sokka.”

Sokka waves awkwardly to the room’s occupants, all of whom are staring at him far too intensely for the lack of alcohol in his system. He recognizes some of them from the days of Jet and Katara’s relationship, and quite a few others from the Equalist rally the other night.

He also recognizes the guy sitting in the corner, playing haphazardly with a knife like it isn’t a literal weapon.

It’s Li.

He doesn’t acknowledge Sokka—which,  _ rude!— _ no, his glare is focused solely on Jet.

“Took you long enough,” he huffs.

“Aww,” Jet says, stepping closer with a smirk. “Did you miss me?”

La help him, Sokka  _ knows  _ that stupid, infuriating smirk on Jet’s face. More specifically, he knows how disgustingly often it was aimed in his sister’s direction.

Oh, Spirits; are Jet and Li...a thing?

Li doesn’t rise to the weird, flirtatious bait. “You have my knife. I want it back.”

“Do I?”

(Sokka silently seconds the question, because he’s 99% certain that he’s not hallucinating the dagger that is very much in Li’s fist.)

Li’s unscarred eye narrows at Jet’s flippancy. The two stare at each other for a moment before Li suddenly jumps to his feet and rushes towards Jet, backing him into the wall with a firm forearm pinned overtop his collarbone. Jet attempts to wriggle out of his hold only for Li to level his blade mere centimeters from his jugular.

“I’m not going to ask again,” Li growls. “My knife.  _ Now.” _

“Okay, okay,” Jet concedes far more casually than someone who just stared down death should be. “No need to get all pushy.”

Li backs off with a scowl, flicking the switchblade away into his sleeve and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Come on, it’s in my room,” Jet says, beginning to lead Li down the hall. “Although if you just wanted it rough, all you had to do was—“

The bleach-worthy conversation cuts off as they enter what Sokka presumes to be the cesspool where Jet sleeps (and, apparently, hides peoples’ knives). Somehow, none of the other Freedom Fighters have so much as raised a finger in protest. 

“Is that...normal?” he asks the girl—Bumblebee?—next to him.

She sighs. “Unfortunately.”

“Yikes.”

“You learn to ignore it,” she replies with a shrug. “Besides, Li’s harmless.”

“Did I just hallucinate the part where he tried to shank Jet?”

Bee snorts. “No. But Jet should’ve known better.  _ Everyone  _ knows how much Li cares about that knife.”

Sokka raises his brows, waiting for an explanation.

“I don’t know why,” she continues at his look. “It’s just a thing.”

“Just a thing,” Sokka repeats.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Now are you gonna help me, or what?”

“Uh. Help with what, exactly?”

Bee groans, glaring halfheartedly in the direction of Jet’s room. “I  _ knew  _ Jet was lying about going out to recruit!”

She turns back to Sokka with a sigh. “We’re making posters to spread the word about the movement.”

She gestures to the pile of flyers stacked between a semicircle of Freedom Fighters, many of whom are scribbling furiously. The others appear to be overseeing the process, and/or just watching in a drunken stupor.

“Cool,” Sokka says. “Love me some art. Quick question, though: Can I get some of that cactus juice first?”

* * *

Ah. Cactus juice. Truly the quenchiest. Spirits, Sokka loves it.

It’s clearly jump-started his artistic genius, because he’s churning out posters like no one’s business. His newest, super genius design is a spot-on caricature of the police chief in all his hideous, sideburned glory, with the elegant caption: “Hate Zhao? Join the Equalists.”

No one has complimented his skills yet, but that’s okay. Sokka’s sure they’re all thinking it.

Jet and Li return at some point, and Sokka is forever grateful that it doesn’t look like the two of them just fucked. (Because that would be uncomfortable, you know? For him and everyone else to see. Yeah. That’s the only reason. Sokka’s sure of it.)

Li has returned to his spot in the corner, this time with a new knife. It must be the one he was all up in arms about, and Sokka  _ really  _ needs to know why. Is it magical? Super badass? The temptation is unbearable!

Screw it. Sokka sets down the brush and shakily rises to his feet, doing his best to push through the sudden headrush and not step on anyone's toes. He all but collapses onto the ground at Li’s side when he finally reaches him. 

“Hey,” he says, offering Li a wobbly smile.

Li frowns. “Uh, can I help you?”

“I just wanted to see your knife.”

Li’s grip on the hilt—an Earth Kingdom design, from the looks of it—not-so-subtly tightens. “What are you even doing here?”

“Nuh uh,” Sokka chides. “No changing the subject.”

Li raises his eyebrow—singular, since the other seems to have been burnt off in whatever horrific incident claimed the left half of his face (and most of Sokka’s curious attention). He doesn’t offer anything else, and Sokka soon finds himself relenting. 

_ “Fine,”  _ he grumbles. “I was at this bar, and everyone was doing all their bending magic shit and it sucked, so now I’m here.”

It’s almost offensive how confused Li appears despite Sokka’s totally sensible explanation.

“Are all your friends benders?” he asks eventually.

Sokka sighs. “Sort of? My ex wasn’t, but she’s back on Kyoshi Island now, so…”

He notices the barest twitch of a frown on Li’s lips at that. Aha, so he  _ does  _ possess empathy!

“I should get going,” Li says without preamble.

“What?” Sokka whines. “But we just started talking!”

“I have some...things to take care of.”

Sokka represses the urge to pout as Li rises from the floor. Then he just...leaves. No goodbye. No nothing.

“What the fuck?” he says once the door clicks shut.

Jet snorts, as if to say  _ “yup, typical Li.” _

“How do none of you think that’s weird?”

Jet shrugs at this, looking up from his very abstract drawing of the Blue Spirit. “You get used to it. Plus, he was a lot worse when we first met.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bee says, a conspiratory smirk on her face. “That boy could  _ yell.” _

“We met on a ferry here from Ba Sing Se,” Jet explains. “Him and his weird uncle.”

“I like Mushi!” another Freedom Fighter (no way in hell does Sokka remember their name) pipes up.

Mushi. Now  _ that’s  _ a name.

“Li helped me liberate some food the captain was squandering,” Jet continues, ignoring the comment. “Well, that and some other things.”

He honest-to-La  _ winks  _ at that.

“Jet,” Bee interrupts. “If you tell the story of him ‘liberating your pants’ one more time, I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”

...Is it bad that Sokka’s main takeaway from this conversation is not Jet’s overall sliminess, but that Li is interested in men?

“We didn’t do anything when I was with your sister,” Jet suddenly rushes to assure. “I swear.”

Fuck. Sokka didn’t even think about that! He’s truly the worst brother ever, isn’t he? Speaking of which…

“I should probably get going soon, too. I don’t want Katara to worry.”

Jet nods. “It was good seeing you, man. We should do this again sometime.”

Sokka finds himself agreeing.

“Oh! Longshot’s helping lead a chi-blocking training with the Equalists this weekend, if you wanna come.”

Huh. That could be useful. “I’ll come check it out.”

Jet offers him a fist-bump, which he easily returns before standing. His legs wobble slightly as he makes his way to the door, and he hears a few concerned whispers.

“I’ll be fine,” he assures. “I made it home after way worse in college.”

He leaves with a final wave—because he has manners, unlike  _ someone— _ and, with one hand clenched tightly around the railing, makes his way down to the ground level.

The street is mostly deserted. He passes a squad of meerkat-lions having a sick dance circle in an alleyway, but they pay him no mind. He wonders if they’re cold, skimpily clad as they are.  _ He  _ certainly is. The wind is miserable, super rudely whipping at his face. He hugs his jacket tighter to himself, hunching his shoulders up to cover his ears.

Okay, he’s almost at the train stop. At least, he thinks he is. Dammit, he  _ knew  _ he shouldn’t have taken a shot for the road!

“Hey, kid. You lost?”

Sokka whirls around, nearly tripping over himself in the process. “Who’s there?”

“No need to be scared,” the stranger says, stepping out into the dim moonlight. “Just do as I say, and no one gets hurt.”

The man calls a flame to his hand, and Sokka flinches back. Fuck, fuck fuck  _ fuck.  _

“Empty your pockets,” he orders.

Sokka reaches into his right pocket and shakily withdraws his wallet.

“Now the right one,” the firebender instructs.

Sokka bites back a comment about the guy not knowing his directions when his left hand curls around the pendant of Mom’s necklace.

“I don’t have anything else,” he stammers. “You can have my money, just leave me alone!”

The man steps closer. “I don’t believe you.”

He can feel the heat radiating from the stranger’s hand, and all Sokka can think about is black snow and grief and hurt and—

He’s attacking before he can process it, swinging his fists wildly at any non-flaming limb he can reach. He has the momentary advantage of surprise, but once it wears off, he finds himself sorely outmatched. The firebender slams a foot into his gut and tackles him to the ground. They scrabble with each other on the concrete, all nails and teeth and fervor.

Sokka’s quickly losing steam, though, and the other man knows it. He manages to pin Sokka on his back, his knees pressing down on his chest. Blood drips onto Sokka’s torn shirt from his nose, crooked and bruised thanks to a classic Water Tribe uppercut.

“You’ll pay for that,” the stranger hisses, reigniting his hand and reaching towards Sokka’s face.

Sokka tries desperately to shrink away, to shunt the attacker off or sink through the earth. The heat is worsening, and Sokka prays to the high heavens that this is just some elaborate hallucination. Yeah, it’s just the cactus juice playing tricks on him. He’ll wake up tomorrow, hungover and unburnt, and everything will be fine. He scrunches his eyes closed, willing the terrors of his subconscious to recede.

Miraculously, they do.

The pressure on his lungs abaits, and the air chills. Ever-so-slowly, he blinks his eyes open. He expects to see nothing but a dark, empty street. Instead, he sees a flurry of glinting metal and then a limp body hitting the ground beside him.

The world spins as he tries to stand, his entire body shaking. The last thing he sees before everything goes dark is a grinning, blue mask. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shinobi’s dialogue is 99% just pulled from lok, figuring out all the wack pro-bending rules on my own was Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!!


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